Thursday, July 14, 2011

When I was a young boy, many summer lunches were spent at my grandparent's table, and that's where I first learned to enjoy fresh vegetables. Like every Italian family in town, they had a backyard garden, which meant an abundance of zucchini, tomatoes, and beans. This cold Romano bean salad was a staple during those hot summer months, and is still one of my favorite summer side dishes.

So, there are two ways you can do this recipe. You can boil your beans, dress them and serve immediately. This technique provides you with a nice vibrant salad, but the beans are simply coated with the dressing, as opposed to being marinated in it.

I prefer it dressed and left to marinate in the fridge overnight, which gives you something closer to a pickled bean. This style creates a sharper, colder, more herbaceous salad that is ideal for the rich, fatty, smoky meats of summer. The tradeoff is in appearance, with the beans giving up the green color for a more vibrant flavor.

If you grow beans, or have a neighbor who does, you should have the ways and means to give this dish a try. Enjoy!

Great looking recipe. I just bought some pole beans and this will do nicely.

As for red velvet cake question, the original cake had no food coloring at all in it. It's a chemical reaction between the non-dutched cocoa powder, the vinegar and buttermilk that produced the red color. However, the original cake was also a very light chocolate, not like a devil's food chocolate. As people started to add more cocoa to make it more chocolatey, they had to add red food coloring to maintain the color of the cake.

Zingor, thanks for the great explanation! Makes sense to me and now I can be an authority at dinner parties. :-)However, I think I'll stick to deep, rich chocolaty brown. Thanks again. I've been asking many folks about this and your the only one who came up with an answer.Jackie

I purchased some Romano beans at the FM after watching this video, and promptly made the recipe to accompany grilled salmon burgers & corn on the cob. What an exceptional summer meal it was! First time I ate this type of bean, and now I'm hooked. Thanks, Chef John!